Transfer of IAS Officers: Awanish Sharan appointed as Bilaspur Collector, Kartikey Goyal as Raigarh Collector

Raipur Two days after the Election Commission of India transferred the two Collectors from Raigarh and Bilaspur apparently to ensure a free and fair assembly elections, the General Administration Department of Chhattisgarh has issued an order regarding the appointment of the new collectors. According to the new order, Awanish Sharan has been appointed as the Collector of Bilaspur, and Kartikey Goyal as the Collector of Raigarh. The order also assigns Effat Ara as the Additional Secretary of the Food Civil Supplies Department. It may be mentioned, The Chhattisgarh government on Wednesday transferred eight officials including three Superintendents of Police (SPs) and two district Collectors on the direction of the Election Commission of India (ECI). The Commission had asked the chief secretary to make available a panel of three officers for each of the eight vacant posts by Thursday evening. The General Administration Department of Chhattisgarh transferred Raigarh collector Taran Prakash Sinha and Bilaspur collector Sanjeev Jha to the secretariat as joint secretaries

The state home department issued an order to shift Rajnandgaon SP Abhishek Meena. Korba SP Uday Kiran and Durg SP Shalabh Sinha to the police headquarters. Bilaspur additional SP Abhishek Maheshwari and Durg additional SP Sanjay Dhruv were transferred as Assistant Inspector General in the PHQ. A 1995-batch Indian Telecom Service officer Manoj Soni who was special secretary for food and civil supplies was also removed. According to the sources familiar with the development, the ECI took the decision owing to inputs it got during the Chhattisgarh visit and the alleged objection raised that the officials not showing result-oriented works related to the polls besides other purported dissatisfaction against them. Chattisgarh will witness two-phase Assembly polls on November 7 and 17.